The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem, New York is a research unit of The New York Public Library system. It is recognized as one of the leading institutions focusing exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Begun with the collections of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg more than 85 years ago, the Schomburg has collected, preserved, and provided access to materials documenting Black life—in America and worldwide. It has also promoted the study and interpretation of the history and culture of peoples of African descent. Today, the Schomburg continues to serve the community not just as a center and a library, but also as a space that encourages lifelong education and exploration. The Schomburg Center consists of three connected buildings: The Schomburg Building, the Langston Hughes Building, and the Landmark Building.
In December 1964, Representatives of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party toured Northern cities seeking support for their campaign to block the seating of Mississippi's pro-segregation Congressmen who had been elected through the disfranchisement of Black voters. A rally was held at Harlem's CME Church on December 20, 1964 with Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer serving as the chief speakers. Hamer had risen from a sharecropper to a national figure after running for Congress on the bi-racial MFDP ticket which led to her moving testimony before Congress about the brutality she and other African Americans endured when they tried to vote in Mississippi. Hamer's speech is most famous for her oft-quoted line " I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Harriet Tubman led nineteen trips through the South to guide three hundred slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and transport for slaves to Free states or Canada arranged by multiple abolitionists. Harriet was known as the “Moses”; the women who led slaves to the “Promise Land”, freedom. Artist Alison Sarr chose to illustrate Harriet not as a conductor of the railroad, but the train itself. She was an unstoppable locomotive who worked to save people from the chains of slavery for the majority of her life. “Freedom felt empty unless you could share it with loved ones.”
The Museum of the City of New York is dedicated to preserving the city’s unique and diverse history and presenting it to the public. The private non-profit museum was founded in 1923 and has been at its current location since 1932. The museum is home to hundreds of thousands of artifacts and artwork relating to the history and culture of New York. In recent years it has gained attention for its new innovative exhibits, including the permanent “New York at Its Core,” an ambitious effort to chronicle the city’s 400-year history. The museum also hosts a number of lectures and performances, and offers venues available for special events.
Lucy Drexel Dahlgren was born into the vast wealth of the Drexels of Philadelphia. Her father founded a Parisian banking firm, Drexel Harjes Company, which would eventually become part of the Morgan firm. She married Eric Dahlgren, and when the pair went through a scandalous and highly publicized divorce in 1913, the mansion they shared on Madison Avenue went to Eric and Lucy eventually commissioned her own mansion on East 96th Street. The Louis XVI-style home was later sold to Pierre Cartier. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In the early 1800s, as cities across the country experienced rapid urbanization, there were concerns that the city would become filled with disadvantaged people, particularly widows and elderly women who were unable to support themselves given the gendered nature of employment and commerce at that time. The Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged and Indigent Females was formed in 1814 to help women who were widowed as a result of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The building on Amsterdam Avenue was constructed by the Association in the late 1800s and functioned as a home for women through the 19th and early 20th centuries before transitioning to a nursing home. Abandoned and empty in the 1970s, the building was in danger of demolition until it was preserved and repurposed as a hostel. The Association building, which is one of only a few of Richard Morris Hunt's buildings still standing in New York City, is a city landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This Joan of Arc sculpture was created by Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington in 1915. In the early 20th century, Joan's fame had reached new heights, thanks to artists' and authors' romanticized depictions of her late medieval martyrdom. The statue stands on a pedestal on a hill, drawing the eye upward. Joan wears a suit of armor and wields a sword, standing in her stirrups as she prepares to enter battle. Huntington conducted extensive research for her design, studying medieval arms and armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and borrowing a horse to examine its anatomy.
Located in New York City's Riverside Park, the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument stands tall surrounded by the park's floral scenery. Said to be the first memorial to be dedicated to a first lady, the statue was unveiled under oak trees at 72nd Street on October 5, 1996 with the then first lady, Hilary Rodham Clinton, attending. Designed by sculptor Penelope Jencks, Eleanor Roosevelt is shown half-seated against a boulder. The circular landscape that is surrounding was designed by architects Bruce Kelly and David Varnell. Inscribed throughout the surrounding pavement are quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson, showcasing the former first lady's dedication to human rights and social justice.
Located at the southern end of the Mall in New York City’s Central Park, the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument honors the lives and work of Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. Sponsored by the all-volunteer non-profit group Monumental Women and designed by renowned sculptor Meredith Bergmann, the monument consists of three over-life-sized bronze likenesses of the early women’s rights advocates on an elongated oval granite pedestal. Unveiled in August 2020, it commemorates the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees women the right to vote. The first to be added to Central Park since 1965, the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument is also the first in the park’s history to depict actual women, as opposed to fictional female characters.
Central Park's Alice in Wonderland statue is the creation of sculptor Jose de Creeft and located next to Conservatory Water. Philanthropist George Delacorte contributed this statue to the city and dedicated it to the memory of his Margarita. Delacorte chose this design as a gift to the children of New York City. The statue includes a variety of characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, a book that was first published in 1862 but continues to engage the curiosity and wonderment in children of all ages.
Beloved author Harper Lee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for To Kill a Mockingbird, was an Alabama native who made her hometown of Monroeville famous as the fictionalized Maycomb. Lee spent much of her life in Alabama, but she also maintained an apartment on the Upper East Side. She moved to the city in 1949, well before becoming a literary sensation, and kept the apartment on 82nd Street until her death in 2016.
The Barbizon Hotel for Women opened in 1927 as a home for young women who came to New York City to find work, including those in pursuit of their dream of becoming a model or actress. By the mid-twentieth century, the 23-story property had developed a reputation for attracting young women who were both glamorous and successful. The building was home to numerous future celebrities and a small army of models of the Ford agency, a company that rented two floors of the building. As second-wave feminism challenged the gendered assumptions that led to the creation of the Barbizon Hotel, a hotel for women seemed more prudish than stylish. As a result, the property was converted to hotels and apartments as it changed hands in the late 20th century. The building now houses condominiums and is known as Barbizon 63. Owing to its architectural and historical significance, the property is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This modern skyscraper was designed by the architectural firm of Emory Ross and Sons and completed in 1964. The building was home to the offices of numerous firms, including the office of the Ladies Home Journal in 1970. On March 18th of that year, two hundred activists representing the National Organization for Women (NOW) occupied the office of John Mack Carter, the editor of the Ladies Home Journal. Inspired by the civil rights and feminist movements, the women held a protest and called for the creation of an all-female editorial staff for the popular women's magazine, along with other demands related to the magazine's content. The protesters occupied Carter's office for 11 hours until a compromise was finally reached. Many of the protester's demands were rejected, but management did agree to offer free writing courses for area women, establish a daycare that would make it easier for parents to work at the magazine, a promise to hire more women, and the creation of a section about NOW in the magazine's August edition.
Early suffragists established The Town Hall as the headquarters of the League for Political Education and built this as a space for women and progressive men to meet and discuss topics related to education and various contemporary issues during the 1920s. Today, the building is a National Historical Landmark-a designation stemming from its historical significance as this venue provided a forum for influential American figures from Margaret Sanger to Langston Hughes to reach a public audience. The venue also hosted national radio broadcasts of a program called America's Town Meeting of the Air starting in 1935. Additionally, the Town Hall hosted many important meetings related to the rights of women, as well as the Black Freedom Movement. It has also hosted various classical, jazz, and folk musicians over the years.
Located at the western gateway to Bryant Park on Fountain Terrace, the memorial commemorates charity worker and social reformer, Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843-1905). In 1876, she became the first woman appointed to the New York State Board of Charities. Today, she is best remembered for helping to found the Consumers’ League of New York in 1890. Shortly after Lowell’s death in 1905, a committee formed with the intent of erecting a memorial in her honor. The committee hired architect Charles Adams Platt to design the memorial, a large ornamental pink granite fountain. Committee members initially hoped to place it in Corlears Hook Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, near where Lowell focused much of her attention during her career. Instead, the memorial was placed at the eastern end of Bryant Park and dedicated on May 21, 1912. About two and a half decades later, in 1936, the fountain was moved to the western end of the park, where it remains today. It is believed to be the first public memorial in New York City dedicated to a woman.
Gertrude Stein was an influential author whose poetry and novels became well-known following the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from Germany, she nearly completed a medical degree before deciding to study the literature and the arts. Stein lived in Europe for much of her adult life, returning to New York in 1934 as a celebrity following the popularity of her 1933 novel which told Stein's life and work through the voice of her lifelong companion Alice Toklas. This statue of Gertrude Stein was installed in 1992 to recognize her contributions to literature and the arts. The casting was made from a 1923 model by Jo Davidson in Paris.
Mary Lindley Murray is best known for stalling the British troops under General Howe by inviting the officers into her Long Island home for tea during the American Revolution. The delay allowed the escape of 5,000 American troops under General Israel Putnam, who were outnumbered two to one by the British forces who intended to destroy them. A monument dedicated to her stands in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City, in the median of Park Avenue near 37th Street.
The NYC Museum of Sex, also known as MoSex, is a museum dedicated to the preservation and history of the significance of human sexuality and all of its components. The museum opened late in 2002 and is still in operation today despite many criticisms. The museum is the first of its kind.
This was the location of one of Margaret Sanger's first family planning clinics, opened in 1930. From that time until 1973, Sanger's Birth Control Research Bureau operated at this location. The building is now a private residence and a National Historic Landmark. Sanger opened the first medical facility in the United States dedicated to offering information and services related to birth control in Brooklyn in 1916. She was arrested for this action less than two weeks later, but continued her efforts and opened a clinic at 104 5th Avenue that later moved to this location in 1930.
Today 10 Greenwich Avenue is the site of a garden adjacent to Jefferson Market Library. But for much of the twentieth century, the site was home to a notorious women’s prison. The Women’s House of Detention was a 12-story prison that once towered over the Village and housed prisoners from its construction in 1932 until it was closed in 1971. Over the course of its history, the jail housed many well-known female prisoners, including many whose “crimes” would hardly raise an eyebrow today.
On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in the ten-story Asch Building just off of Washington Square. Managers often locked the exits to prevent workers from sneaking out for a break and to prevent theft. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. In a half an hour, the fire was over, and 146 of the 500 workers were dead. Most of the several hundred Triangle Shirtwaist employees were teenage girls, recent Jewish and Italian immigrants. The Asch Building is now known as the Brown Building and is part of the New York University campus.
Patricia Highsmith was an American writer. Over the span of her career, she wrote more than 30 books, three of her most notable works being The Talented Mr. Ripley, Strangers on a Train, and The Price of Salt, which was the first lesbian novel published in either hard or soft cover to have a happy ending. Many of her novels were also adapted for film and television. She spent most of her time between Greenwich Village and traveling, preferring to write in locations around Europe. She was a very complicated woman, as she was somehow very appealing to suitors, a talented writer, while also being somewhat racist and anti-Semitic.
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The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is the first and only LGBTQ art museum in the world dedicated LGBTQ art and history. The mission of the museum is to display and preserve LGBTQ art and the artists behind it. The Leslie-Lohman Museum embraces the rich creative history of the LGBTQ art community by educating, informing, inspiring, entertaining, and challenging all who enter its doors. The organization was founded as a non-profit foundation in 1987 by Charles W. Leslie and Fritz Lohman, who have supported LGBTQ artists for over 30 years.
Founded in 1980, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history, heritage, culture, and diverse experiences of people of Chinese descent in the United States. The museum promotes dialogue and understanding among people of all cultural backgrounds, brings 160 years of Chinese American history to vivid life through its innovative exhibitions, educational and cultural programs. Current exhibitions include “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America,” MOCA’s new core exhibit featuring four Chinese-American artists’ works, and “Fold: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures,” another exhibit engaging visitors in a conversation about immigration issues.
Founded in 1988 by historian Ruth Abram and social activist Anita Jacobson, the Tenement Museum (sometimes also referred to as the Lower East Side Tenement Museum) explores America’s immigrant past and examines the role immigrants have played (and continue to play) in our national story. Located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the museum offers visitors interpretive tours of historically recreated tenements, in addition to neighborhood walking tours. It also runs programs for secondary and post-secondary educators and maintains a small archive containing census records, newspaper articles, photographs, oral history interviews, and more than 2,000 artifacts, which is available to researchers by appointment.
This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.
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This walking tour includes landmarks that are directly related to women's history along with a few museums along the route that emphasize the experiences of women. Highlights of the tour include monuments to influential women, institutions specifically dedicated to preserving and sharing women's history, and several 19th-century buildings that were constructed by or for women.
